Suzi Taylor

Women making waves

Christine Kaman is a powerhouse when it comes to using the airwaves as a platform to represent women’s stories and human rights issues. She has worked for over 20 years as a radio broadcaster in Simbu province, in the Central highlands of Papua New Guinea.

Christine produces and presents a daily three hour radio program, five days a week. It's called Pokodungwa, which means 'Evening'. She works a 13 hour day.

“We don’t have internet, we don’t use the telephone lines because it’s really expensive for the office, so what we do, we just go out personally and get the stories.”

For local stories, they go out on foot but, for yarns further afield, they take the station car. “But sometimes it’s in the workshop. It’s a problem car!” Christine laughs.

The idea of lining up stories in the absence of the internet and telephone would leave most of us feeling a little wobbly at the knees. But Christine and her colleagues are determined, hard-working and prolific, producing around ten hours of local content a day in Tok Pisin, a Creole language spoken widely throughout the country.

This time last year, Christine and the Provincial Council of Women organised an Outdoor Broadcast at an International Women’s Day event which brought together women from all the districts in the province.

“They came out and talked on all different topics, like violence against women and girls. I was there to interview and record some of the ladies. I got so many interesting talks.”

Christine made sure to invite the Provincial Police Commander, local government officials and magistrates to the talks as well. She understands the importance of getting the authorities to understand the essential role that they have to play in upholding and enforcing laws to protect women and girls from violence.

“Some of them didn’t attend, but some did come and listen to the women talk at that time.”

‘Women’s world’ is one of Christine’s popular story segments.

“When there is any issues coming up regarding women, most of the time I’m always there following up that story!" she said. “Women must know their rights too, to access better things in life, health, education.”

While many women are too shy to speak up on the issues that they face, Christine has forged relationships with key women in communities who are prepared to be spokeswomen.

“There are some ladies in each village who can talk, so we bring these ladies in and they talk on behalf of the others. Some of these educated ones, they know their rights and the laws protecting the women.”

She acknowledged that these spokeswomen often put a lot on the line to get their voices heard. “At times those women who are doing the educating are sometimes at risk too, because there might be guys who don’t like it that a lady is coming out and telling the others what to do and where to go.”

Christine was quick to name the two most serious issues facing women in her region: sorcery and violence. She explained that when there is a death in a village, the tribe or family will attribute that death to black magic. And the accused is always a woman or elderly people.

“That’s one thing that’s becoming popular now in PNG, especially in the highlands where I am from,” she said. Christine is mystified as to the cause of the recent upsurge in sorcery killings around PNG.

“The other thing is violence,” she added. “Men coming in and beating women for food or money or any other thing that leads to violence, it’s always the women getting beaten up.”

Last year, PNG ranked 134th out of 148 countries on the UN Development Program's gender inequality index. Christine tries to stay focused on providing a platform for these issues to be raised publicly in an effort to bring about not just law reform, but real action from authorities to enforce those laws.

She is buoyed by the positive feedback she regularly receives on her show, and the power and reach she knows that radio has in PNG communities. Most people don’t have a television or internet access in their home, but many have a radio.

“I’ve had some women telling us – that’s a good program, it’s really telling us something and telling us where to go [for help],” she smiles.

In an article from The Australian last year, Rosemary Neill explored some innovative ways that PNG media, working in conjunction with AusAID, are using stories to bring about social reform. In one AusAID-backed project, trainee PNG film-makers create positive profiles of local female leaders, aimed at challenging gender stereotypes.

And ABC International Development supported a partnership between NBC, the public broadcaster that Christine works for, and AusAID to create the 2011 ‘Use Your Voice’ campaign, aimed at tackling the country's endemic levels of gender violence. The latter project culminated in more than 30 hours of radio content dedicated to the issue.

The fact that aid organisations and government-funded agencies – entities that need to account fastidiously for every cent they spend – are increasingly supporting media in this way in PNG, reflects a growing awareness that stories can shape people's behaviour, attitudes and ultimately, change people's lives. And there’s nothing like the ubiquity of radio to spread a message fast.

This International Women’s Day, I’d like to pay tribute to Christine and to storytellers around the world who act locally to challenge the status quo, in the hope of ensuring a future for our next generation of girls that’s 'bright, equal, safe and rewarding,' to quote the IWD manifesto.